Hunting Shadows
By
Fade
Chapter 3
When the sun came up, Shadow arose to find that the rest of his teammates were already awake and ready to start their day. For Shiver and Hammer, both of whom had expensive sleep regulators installed as part of their suites of cyberware and bioware, this was par for the course. The artificially grown nervous tissue that made up the sleep regulators allowed both of the razors to sleep very deeply, and awake refreshed after only four or five hours of sleep.
Silk was an entirely different matter though. The mage despised mornings above everything save not looking good. In the past the only things that Shadow had seen the mage get up early for involved huge fashion events, or matters of life and death. The sheer novelty of seeing his friend up before the sun was fully over the skyline started to penetrate the funk that overshadowed the shape shifter. Shadow didn’t really get a chance to find out why Silk was up though because as soon as he stuck his head outside his room, the pretty elf threw a towel at him.
“Hurry and get into the shower, we’ve got a really busy day ahead of us, and everyone else is ready to get started.”
A veteran of many arguments with the mage, or ‘discussions’ as Silk insisted on calling them, Shadow knew that trying to find out what was going on was highly unlikely to meet with any success. Especially since Shiver and Hammer appeared to be in cahoots with the whirlwind of frantic energy that was pretending to be the elven mage he called a friend.
Shadow exited his room showered and dressed fifteen minutes later to find Hammer and Shiver concealing pistols, throwing knives, shuriken, and a few other implements of mayhem in their dusters. The shape shifter would have wondered if they were going on a run despite Hammer’s decision the night before, except for the fact that Silk was very obviously not dressed for a fight. Where the two razors wore clothing made out of ballistic cloth, armored vests, and dusters lined with ballistic plates, Silk was dressed in khaki pants and a black tank top, neither of which was made out of any kind of Kevlar or Spider Silk derivative, a fact that Shadow knew because he had been forced to accompany the mage on the shopping excursion during which she purchased them. The weir-tiger still didn’t understand for sure why Silk had made him come along. It wasn’t as though Shadow was attracted to the same things that an elf, a human, or even a troll was, and consequently, his opinion wasn’t worth a whole lot.
After watching Silk model countless different outfits, Shadow suspected that the reason had something to do with the other women in the store. Silk had watched them out of the corner of her eye whenever she though neither Shadow or they were watching. The mage had also dropped several hints to sales-people and cashiers that the shape shifter had since learned enough to interpret as suggesting some kind of romantic involvement between the two of them.
Shadow was brought back to the present as Silk finally agreed to wear an lined duster “until we arrive”. The mage then rushed into the kitchen and called for Hammer and Shiver, both of whom reappeared a few seconds later carrying several large containers. By this time, Shadow had also donned armor, if slightly less than Hammer and Shiver, and was in the process of secreting his own mini arsenal in the various pockets hidden in his long coat.
A vehicle horn honked from outside, and Silk grumbled under her breath about the fact that rental cars never arrived on time except for when she was running late. Hammer checked the door, and then satisfied that they were in no immediate danger, lead the way to the van waiting at the curb.
Shiver grabbed Shadow’s smart goggles from a shelf near the kitchen and tossed them to the shape shifter with a wry grin before heading out the door one arm full of the items Silk had pressed on him. Silk directed Shadow to a bag full of about 30 kg of something with an admonishment not to peek. The shape shifter casually slung the bag over one shoulder as the elf gently pushed him out the door.
The drive had only been underway for about five minutes when Silk told Shiver to pull over. The razor sent a look of protest to the other elf, but pulled over after Hammer nodded. Shadow and the rest of the team watched as the mage ran into a toy store, returning with a pair of gaudy plastic bags. The men were left to wonder what Silk had been worried about forgetting, but nobody asked. Shadow because he knew she wouldn’t tell him, Hammer and Shiver because they knew it was something that she wouldn’t want Shadow to know.
Within a few minutes of resuming their drive, the group had left the area of Seattle with which Shadow was familiar. Over the next two hours, Silk directed Shiver out of the city into areas that were less and less populated. For a minute Shadow wondered how the group was going to get past some of the checkpoints, but the troops from the different Native American Nations all let the group past with only minimal interviews, and fairly reasonable passage fees.
As trees and other greenery became more and more common, the condition of the road continued to deteriorate. The pavement finally disappeared altogether as the road jogged to the right, and a few minutes latter Silk asked Shiver to park the vehicle on the side of the gravel road.
All four runners exited the van to the unusual treat of bright sunshine. Silk grimaced, slipping her dark glasses back on, and letting the electronics in the glasses dim the glare down to the point where she didn’t feel like she needed to squint. Hammer and Shiver had circuitry built into their cybereyes that dimmed the light down to the point where the glare didn’t interfere with their vision. Shadow on the other hand had magically augmented eyes. Not only did that allow him to see into the infrared spectrum like Hammer and Shiver, it also gave him uncanny low-light vision, and dimmed down any glare to the point where it didn’t bother him. Yet another instance where everyone else has cool toys or powers, and I have to make due with these stupid glasses, thought the mage. Then again, I can do a few things that they can’t, and these glasses do work pretty well.
The glasses were in fact a marvelous piece of technology. Electronic magnification, a smart system for better accuracy with firearms, infrared displays, as well as low-light and ultra-sound modes. Right now though, Silk was very thankful for the active glare reduction that came as part of the flare compensation package.
Hammer was always big on understanding how your tools worked, so the mage had looked into how the flare compensation functioned. Silk had always assumed that there was a mini computer that registered when too much light was hitting the lenses, and then changed the polarity to keep too much light from hitting the eyes of the wearer. Apparently this wasn’t the case. No electronics could possibly be quick enough to handle calculations of the intensity of the light, as well as changing the polarity of the glasses in the time it took light to go from the front of the lenses to the back. Intense light would sear or blind a person before the processor could compensate.
Instead, the computer in the glasses maintained a very precise level of polarization, but did nothing initially to cope with glare. Instead the material in the lenses automatically darkened itself when the amount of light passing through a given section of the material exceeded a certain threshold. There wasn’t any kind of command sent by the processor, the plastic just physically altered its light transmission characteristics when exposed to a higher level of energy. The processor then refined the level and amount of polarization to give the wearer the best possible picture. The refinement took place so quickly, that the average wearer never even noticed the slight degradation of the visual picture that occurred before the processor could receive the information, perform the required calculations, and send the information back.
Although Silk found the information to be interesting, she still didn’t understand what was so vitally important about the way the glasses worked. Hammer had been aware of her frustration with his demand that she learn about each piece of equipment she would be using, but had just smiled at her queries, stating that he knew the mage was smart enough to eventually figure out the reason behind his request.
Of course Silk knew that the shadows were arguably one of the deadliest environments known to man. The only things that runners can count on are their skills, and equipment. Knowing the full capabilities of your equipment was likely to save you grief at some point along the way. Hammer was simply trying to ingrain in the new runner a habit that could save not only her life, but his, or another member of the team, but it didn’t make the process any less frustrating.
Silk shook her head slightly as she saw the massive troll watching her. Sometimes I swear he knows what I’m thinking. He knows that I’m frustrated with some of his rules, but that I’m going to keep analyzing them until I figure out why he has them. Shrugging slightly the mage stuck her tongue out at Hammer before pointing to a dusty trail.
“Hoi this is where we are headed. Please walk carefully so that you don’t sprain an ankle. Oh, if you see an old elf who looks like he has become a little too ‘at one with the land’ please don’t shoot at him, we’re here on his sufferance.”
Already headed up the path, Silk never saw Shiver bite back a comment about the likelihood of any of the men injuring themselves in something as prosaic as a fall. Hammer did though, which just gave the troll one more thing to worry about. It was amazing to the how easily his protégée bristled at the naive comments Silk tended to toss off.
A half an hour of hiking through beautiful, lush foliage brought the group into a fairly large clearing. Silk walked halfway into the clearing before turning back to look at Shiver, who had stopped in astonishment. Silk smiled in amusement, “I guess there isn’t much in the way of wilderness over in Japan, huh?” Shiver shrugged, face once again impassive, before following the rest of the team over to where the mage was spreading a very large blanket out on the grass. Gesturing for the men to move closer and remove their packs, Silk proceeded to unpack incredible amounts of food.
Shadow opened his mouth to ask why the team was here, but Silk answered his question before he could get started. “We are here to have a picnic silly. I have a friend who is the caretaker for this area. We all could tell that something was bothering you, so we thought it would be good for you to get out of the city and back into the wilderness. It isn’t very much like China, but hopefully it is a little more like home than girders and concrete.”
Hammer shook his head looking at Shadow with a gentleness that Silk was starting to understand was never buried too deeply under the troll’s massive features. “That isn’t quite correct, this was essentially all Silk’s idea. She is the one deserving on any thanks.”
Shadow looked as if he was about to say something else when Shiver announced, “We are being watched.” Hammer nodded and pointed to a tree on the other side of the clearing. “The individual observing us fits the description that Silk gave us of our host, so I didn’t figure that there was great cause for us to be alarmed.”
Silk looked towards the tree in question, and then seeing a weathered old man walk slowly out from cover, ran over to him. “Grandfather,” called the mage as she reached the dusty man. “How have you been?”
The mage’s companions were amazed to see the spotlessly clean mage hug the filthy elf. A few words were exchanged quietly enough that not even the technologically and magically augmented ears of the men could pick up. After a moment, the pair walked over to the other three. Silk made introductions to their host, and then the shaman peered at each for a few minutes. Turning to Silk he nodded before looking back at Hammer.
“Guardian, I welcome you to the land of my people. Should the oak falter, it can be only a matter of time until the saplings also give way before the tempest.”
Turning to Shadow, the human continued, handing him something that Silk couldn’t quite make out. “You are also welcome child of The Mother. Although the nature of the pond is to seek stillness, attempting to reflect beauty back upon the world, terrible is the fate of him who achieves his ambition.”
Looking at Shiver, the old man considered him for another few seconds before addressing him. “The true measure of strength is not in the losing, but in that which comes after the loss.”
Shifting back and forth from one foot to the other, Silk seemed about to break the solemnity of the moment, but stopped as her friend turned towards her. “As for you Butterfly, you still flit from flower to flower, denying your true nature. The time will come when your past will force itself upon you once again.”
The team was still in shock as the shaman turned and walked towards the trees. Five minutes after their host had disappeared into the forest, Silk finally cleared her throat. “He is usually like that. I’ve known him for while now, but don’t know anything about him other than that he serves as a kind of custodian for this area. I blundered into this clearing a few years ago. We talked for a while, and he invited me to come back and find my center.”
Silk shrugged. “The next time I came back, the grass was thicker, and the insects weren’t as bad. Someday I’m going to figure out how to cast the spells he used to accomplish all of the changes he made here, but I don’t have the time to do it right now. This is his life, mine is healing, and now killing.”
Lost in thought, Silk didn’t notice the way Shadow flinched at her final statement. Hammer did though, and the troll decided it was time to change the subject. “Now that we are here, are you going to tell us what you picked up at that toy store?”
Nodding, Silk reached back into her backpack with a smile and pulled out a black plastic disc and tossed it to Shiver with a flick of her wrist. “I’ll bet none of you thought you’d be playing Frisbee today.”
Shadow looked at the Frisbee in frustration, obviously amazed at how much he still didn’t know about metahumanity. The shape shifter felt slightly better when he realized that both Hammer and Shiver had looks of confusion on their faces as well. Finally Hammer volunteered a comment, “You’re right, although from the looks of things it was because none of us have any idea what Frisbee is.”
Silk looked from one man to another in disbelief. “You mean you haven’t even heard of Frisbee? I can’t believe this, Shadow I can see never having played, but surely you and Shiver played when you were little.”
Hammer shook his head. “Shadow did indeed miss out on the experience of being a child as we think of it, but Shiver and I hardly had normal childhoods. I was left on the doorstep of the monastery, and grew up fairly separated from the things most children know. Shiver spent his first few years on the street before we took him in. Neither circumstance lent itself to playing games that didn’t have to do with survival or learning in one way or another.”
Silk digested what the gillette had just said for a moment before holding a hand up and responding. “Ok, you didn’t have a chance to learn everything you should have as a child, but there isn’t any excuse for not having remedied that deficiency now that you are all adults.”
Surrendering to the elf’s friendly onslaught, Hammer raised both hands and indicated to Shiver that he was ready for the other to toss him the Frisbee. Silk was amazed to see Shiver snap the Frisbee towards Hammer with incredible speed. Sure, it took me days to be able to do that, but Elf Incredible over there can throw perfectly from the first time he touches the thing.
Hammer casually caught the disc, and tossed it to Shadow commenting, “It is very similar to a chakra.” Just when Silk was convinced that the rest of her team already possessed an effortless accuracy that the mage had spent months and years gaining, Shadow missed his first throw, sending it seven feet over Shiver’s head. Shiver remedied the situation by jumping up and grabbing the spinning disc before it could pass him.
Shadow and Shiver exchanged a few throws to let the shape shifter get the hang of hitting what he aimed for, and then the Frisbee started zipping around the clearing. Silk was fairly athletic, much more so that one would expect from the image she cultivated, and possessed of quite a bit of skill when it came to Frisbee, but she soon found herself very outclassed.
Whether due to magic or technology, all three men were incredibly fast and strong, as well as having the smooth grace of one who has practiced physical skills for years. Consequently, the mage was privileged to see her teammates make catches she never would have believed possible.
Upon deciding that tossing the disc directly at each other was not exciting enough, the men started throwing towards random points in the clearing, and seeing if someone could run the Frisbee down before it hit the ground. Although the mage was not able to complete the kind of catches that Shadow or Shiver could, everyone made sure she felt included by throwing to points that Silk could reach if she pushed herself.
After playing for an hour or so Silk decided that she was tired enough to sit it out for a while, and laid down on the thick grass to watch the rest of the team continue to play. A short while later the boys seemed to tire of the now-battered black disk, and Silk caught them looking around as if in search of something else to do. Rising to her feet the elf waved the three over as she walked back to the picnic cloth.
As the mage sat down and began to pull food out of ant-proof containers, she realized that Shadow hadn’t joined the others at the picnic cloth. As if sensing her gaze, the shape shifter turned and looked at her. “Unless you think it would anger your friend, I think I’ll don my natural form. It has been many months since I’ve hunted.”
The rest of the team watched while Shadow walked to the lush, green trees, and disappeared. Hammer placed a huge hand on Silk’s shoulder, diverting her attention from the trees. “He’ll be ok, all we can do is wait until he is ready to come back.”
Silk made an effort to smile, but the expression came out very much like a frown. “I know, I just worry about him. He can take care of himself when it comes to some things, but in other ways he is still like a little kid.”
Shiver handed his two teammates plates, “We wait.” Hammer nodded, and started distributing food, only to have Silk grab his arm excitedly. “Over there, I see him.”
Looking over to where the mage was pointing, the team saw an massive, black-stripped tiger ghost out of the woods. Shadow looked at the team for a moment before fading back into the trees.
***
Shadow had spent the last few hours exploring the area in his natural form. For all that he had spent most of the last several years in human form, there was no doubt that he felt more comfortable as a tiger. Weighing in at 150 kg, and measuring nearly two and half meters from nose to tail, Shadow’s present form was a true killing machine, capable of ranging incredible distances searching for prey.
Right now the shape shifter was padding silently towards what he thought would be a likely spot for a kill. Tiger’s generally rely on the senses of sight and sound when hunting, but Shadow’s sense of smell was still sensitive enough to pick out the standing water somewhere not too far away.
The breeze, barely noticeable in human form with it’s lack of body hair, seemed to tease Shadow’s whiskers and fur as it danced past and caused the vibrant green foliage to shiver. The shape shifter saw a thinning of the undergrowth ahead and realized that he must be approaching another meadow.
Crouching further down the tiger seemed to melt into the surrounding greenery as he crept slowly forward to the point where he could see a pair of some kind of small deer. The herbivores grazed unworriedly next to a small pond, pausing every so often to look up and scan their surroundings for danger, completely missing the crouching predator.
Prior to learning how to access his latent magical abilities, there wouldn’t have been any way Shadow could have made a kill starting from so far away. With his improved speed and strength however, the physad gave himself a better than average change of catching one of the deer before it hit full stride and made its escape. Waiting until both animals returned to grazing, Shadow lunged out of the underbrush streaking towards the nearer deer, magically augmented muscles straining for every bit of speed they could muster. Less than a second later the were tiger had covered the first half of the distance to his target, but the deer’s head was already up and it was bolting away from him. Shadow’s paws hit the ground again launching him at his target only to fall centimeters short as both deer hit full speed and rapidly disappeared into the trees.
Panting slightly the tiger padded over to the pond to drink. In the wild it wasn’t uncommon for a tiger to make between ten and twenty attempts before pulling something down, and the deer really had been quite a ways away. Still it would have been nice to make the kill.
The thought made Shadow pause, as it brought back the turmoil that had sent him out here in the first place. Although his new life brought all kinds of wonders and conveniences, the physad often thought that he would have been much better off if he’d never left the jungle.
The jungle, where the strong preyed upon the weak, never wondering about the wrong or the right of their actions. Meeting the monks had caused Shadow to look at the world in a completely different way. Of course it hadn’t happened all at once. In fact, he was more than a little surprised that the group of kindly old men hadn’t given up on him. They’d lured him in with the prospect of accessing his magical nature to become stronger, and then ambushed him with philosophy. At first he’d simply ignored their discourses, mastering the occasional urge to kill the most irritating monks because he knew it would result in the others refusing to continue teaching him.
Sometime later he realized that he quite enjoyed being around some of the less annoying brothers. That had been the beginning of the end for the were tiger. Now there were the strong, the weak, and friends - friends, who might not necessarily fit in the category of the strong. Sensing their opportunity, the philosophers had pressed, and he was forced to admit that he would be unhappy if his weak friends were preyed upon by someone else stronger than him, and that no matter how strong he became, he undo even the least harm that another might do.
Shadow could no longer even remember had he had arrived from that point to agreeing that certain things were inherently wrong, and that the only way everyone could be happy was if they treated everyone in the same manner that they would want to be treated.
Under that rule killing was wrong and Shadow, who had killed a number of people in the last few weeks, stood irrevocably condemned. The problem was that the shape shifter felt that allowing himself or his friends to die would have been a far greater evil. The monks can’t have been completely justified, some killing must still be wrong, but where does one draw the line?
***
Silk had wanted to follow Shadow astrally, but Hammer had forbidden it, stating quite adamantly that the shape shifter needed some time to himself. Silk had tried to rationalize her wishes based on the possibility that someone could ambush the shape shifter while he was alone, but Hammer had remained firm. “The odds of anyone lying in wait for Shadow are extremely low, if he happens to just run into someone, I have faith that he can handle himself.” Shiver had nodded in his usual dismissive manner, and even the normally stubborn mage had realized that the issue was settled.
By the time that Shadow returned, it was starting to get dark. Hammer and Shiver had passed the time with hand to hand training, while Silk had spent her time practicing low power versions of her ram spell.
In what was becoming a regular occurrence, Silk had asked Hammer and Shiver if they wanted to let her practice some of her spells on them. Shiver had shook his head in disbelief, flipping a frisbee at the mage with a near playfulness that was completely at odds with the normal air of indifference that the other elf cultivated, while Hammer, no doubt mostly out of politeness had actually seemed to consider for a few seconds before declining her offer. Silk was instead forced to test her ram spell out on various trees that looked sturdy enough to handle the slight kinetic shock the powered-down version produced. Silk felt an idea starting to coalesce into something potentially useful just as Shadow walked out of the forest. Shoving the idea to the back of her mind for the moment, the mage ran over to her friend, trailed only slightly less quickly by the two razors.
Shadow saw his friends nearing, and felt a twinge of something he had only recently learned to interpret. Before encountering metahumans, and realizing that he could take on their form, Shadow had been very happy with his existence. Walking upright, first among the monks in China, and then with his new companions in Seattle, had exposed the shape shifter to a variety of new ideas and experiences. Although the shape shifter had enjoyed being back in his alternate form, he was realizing that he had missed his friends.
“I don’t really know how to tell you what is bothering me,” admitted Shadow as his friends neared.
Silk grabbed the shape shifter’s arm, and led him back to the blanket. “Just start with something general, and we will help you work it down to what is really eating at you.”
As the team sat down, Shadow looked at each of his teammates, and then started. “As a tiger, before I met the monks, I took great joy in making a kill. A kill meant that I would be able to eat, that I had triumphed over possible death. I was stronger, and therefore preyed upon those weaker than me, it was the natural order of things, and I never had reason to consider right or wrong. After I met the monks, the taught me that any power brings with it, a responsibility to use the power only to help others.”
Hammer nodded, seeing where the physad was going with his story. Silk hadn’t thought things through that far, but was listening attentively, while Shiver played with a blade of grass. “So, they taught you the things they believed. That is why you are so honorable, a quality I greatly admire in you,” stated the mage.
Shadow smiled sadly as he continued. “Killing other people, regardless of their shape or color, is wrong. Above anything else, my teachers emphasized the wrongness of this act. Since I arrived in Seattle I have killed many people. Most of them never even had a chance against someone like me, so I guess a better description would be that I murdered them. Not only that, but I enjoyed the fighting, I enjoyed triumphing over the few worthy adversaries that we faced.”
Silk started shaking her head. “You’ve only killed people that wanted to kill you first. Surely there is room in what the monks taught you for self defense.”
Shiver interjected his own opinion before Shadow could respond. “Bugs deserved to be squashed.”
Hammer shot his student a disapproving look before making his own case. “Killing where it is avoidable is indeed wrong, despite what others might say and believe.” The big troll steepled his fingers as he tried to decide how best to proceed.
“Where possible, killing should be avoided. If one examines that statement, one realizes that even the ancients felt that under some circumstances killing would be unavoidable. Suppose that a ruler commits many grave wrongs. One may even suppose that the ruler has caused the deaths of some of his subjects. Furthermore, what if the ruler expresses not regret for the lives he has ended prematurely, but instead expresses a willingness to continue down the path of injustice?”
Shiver, familiar with the Zen teachings of his mentor nodded in preparation for what he knew was coming next, while Silk who had just finished mentally following the line of reasoning through to its end smiled slightly.
Hammer continued, glad that Shadow hadn’t seen the expressions of his teammates. “If this ruler is allowed to continue, he will perpetrate additional wrongs. Would it not be better for one of the ruler’s soldiers to cut down the source of these past wrongs, to stop the creation of future wrongs?”
Looking the shape shifter in the eyes the gillette continued paused before continuing. “Is this not an instance where the sword that takes life is the sword that gives life? That is basically what you have done. All of the men that you killed had great power, whether due to cyberware, or magic. In a way they were rulers, rulers who evidenced no pity for the crimes they were committing.”
Shadow looked up at the early-rising sliver of a moon, pondering what had been said. “What about the fact that I enjoyed beating them, enjoyed killing them. Does that not somehow mark me as flawed, as being as deserving of death as those I killed?”
Silk indicated to Hammer that she wanted to answer, something Hammer agreed to with more than a little trepidation. “The euphoria you felt after a fight was not because you had just killed someone. It is a natural reaction for having survived a potentially lethal situation. I’ve never seen you gloat over the corpse of a fallen enemy, kill someone who had angered you, or seen you do anything else that I would associate with someone that enjoyed killing.”
Still shaking her head the mage continued. “Quite the opposite, you always endeavor to avoid battle. When that is not possible, you seem to avoid killing your opponent until left with no other choice. Not only that, you are usually very calm during a fight. Last night was the first time I’ve seen you nearly loose control in a violent manner.”
Hammer held up a hand, preempting Shadow. “Before you try to use the events of last night as a reason for why you should be put down like a rabid dog, remember two things. You only lost control after a friend was threatened, and under a situation of extreme stress. Even then, you didn’t take joy in the destruction you were causing.”
Silk reached over and gave Shadow a hug. “You are only metahuman, don’t beat yourself up for trying to help stop the kind of people we were up against.”
Shadow responded awkwardly to the hug, patting the mage on the back because that is what he had seen other do, but obviously not at ease. The shape shifter looked at his friends for a moment before nodding reluctantly. “You have given me quite a bit to think about. I don’t know if I can fully justify my joy in combat, but I suppose that is part of who I am. Lets go home so that we can get ready for our op tomorrow.”
Hammer nodded, but held out a hand to stop everyone from moving. “We truly walk a difficult path. Keep examining your actions. If you ever truly come to enjoy the sense of power you feel as an enemy bleeds his life blood before you, that is when you’ll have gone to far. Should that happen, run back to the jungles as quickly as you are able.”
Silk pondered Hammer’s words for a few moments, and then looked at Shadow’s astral aura to see if he really was ok. The shape shifter’s aura was still shot through with the brown of self doubt, but it was much less than it had been previously, and was slowly fading. Instead, the shape shifter was surrounded with the silver of curiosity, and the gold of loyalty that were his usual primary colors.
The mage examined the rest of the trace colors that she could identify, and finding nothing amiss, nodded slightly to Hammer. Hammer correctly interpreted Silk’s gesture. “Very well, if everyone is willing, let us head home.”
The team packed up everything they had brought with them, and headed out of the clearing, never realizing that they had an astral observer watching them the entire time. Looking down at his bear-like astral body, Arthur Redshirt, known to Silk as Grandfather, marveled again at the differences between astral space and normal reality. Easily noticeable differences, like being able to read people’s emotional state, or the fact that a diffuse light that had no discernable source always kept the darkness at bay, served only to hint at the deeper, darker differences between the two realities. Arthur decided that such philosophical questions were better saved for a time when they could be directed to his totem, and turned to watch the runners leave. Drifting down next to Silk, the powerful bear shaman looked closely at the shape shifter who was leading the mage through the darkness.
Examining the physical adept’s aura in a level of detail that Silk still didn’t dream existed, the shaman very nearly was able to see into the shape shifter’s heart. After a few moments Arthur nodded slowly to himself, “He will be ok now,” muttered the shaman.
__________
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